A collaborative workspace (henceforth “workspace”) refers to functionality that allows individuals to work on a shared task in a coordinated fashion. A typical workspace defines permissions which identify a collection of members who are permitted to interact with the workspace. The permissions also define the manner in which the respective members are permitted to interact with the workspace. The workspace also commonly defines a collection of items (e.g., document items) associated with the workspace. In operation, authorized members may engage the workspace (in a manner defined by the permissions) to work on the shared items in a coordinated fashion.
An owner or administrator of a workspace creates the workspace in a manual and generally ad hoc manner. He or she performs this task by manually defining the authorized members of the workspace, together with their respective permission levels. The owner or administrator also manually identifies the items that will be part of the workspace and then associates the items with the workspace, e.g., by manually moving the items to a workspace-related store. This process is effective, but may be time-consuming and burdensome. The difficulty in setting up a workspace may discourage the would-be workspace owner or administrator from setting up a workspace in some circumstances.